Dumbo Style Cake

A friend asked me a couple of months ago if I would make a Dumbo cake for a baby shower.   I casually tossed off, sure no problem, happy to do it.

And I was, but then came the test, how to make a Dumbo.
I went online, I googled, I checked Pinterest and even Etsy.
Did you know you can buy Dumbo figurines made of fondant? 
You can, and you pay for the artist who made them.  They're not that cheap.

No problem, I thought, I used to do some clay sculptures, back in my way, way, way younger days and maybe I could play with fondant and make my own.

Well, that idea hit the skids almost right away.
I live in the south, and the humidity would have made for a sorry looking Dumbo, he would have been all flollopy.

Yes, that's a word, flollopy, the same way you get when you have one drink too many.
Sorry, I got caught up in a word there.

Well, last year I made Calla Lilies out of gum paste for a wedding cake I made and I decided to play with the gum paste.  I thought the Calla Lilies turned out pretty good.   

I'd made a few extra's so put them on a little cake for the Bridal Shower.

So I was pretty confident I could do something with Gum Paste.
Honestly, I kinda impressed myself with how well it turned out.


Here's a few pictures of the process of making my Dumbo.

I did use this website as a guide though, and I want to give Kudos to him/her for the clear pictures.

I also wasn't going to post about the process, so I just used my phone to take pictures, and then I thought well, maybe someone might be interested in the process. 

I used Gum Paste and made the basic figure, added the front legs, then the collar,  I used toothpicks to make a kind of ruffle around it.

Let it dry, and then added the ears, flaring them out slightly. 

After that, I made his little hat

Let him dry for a couple of days and then painted him using gel food coloring mixed with a little gum paste and water.  Next time, I'll thin it out with some vodka so that it may dry faster, I hope.  We had really humid weather that week.

Here he is on top of the cake.   Thanks to the high humidity, he still glistened as he wasn't completely dry.  I thought he resembled a porcelain figurine, myself.

And there you have it, my venture into modeling a figurine with Gum Paste.
I had fun with him.
I even bought some more gum paste to play with. giggle.